DENVER — U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton last night asked the women who stood by her during her presidential campaign, whom she affectionately called "my sisterhood of the traveling pantsuits," to work as hard for U.S. Sen. Barack Obama.

"Whether you voted for me, or you voted for Barack, the time is now to unite as a single party with a single purpose," the New York senator told delegates at the Democratic National Convention. "We are on the same team, and none of us can afford to sit on the sidelines.

"This is a fight for the future. And it's a fight we must win together."

Stephanie Ohigashi, a Clinton delegate from Hawai'i who said she became friends with the Clintons after Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, has already moved on.

Ohigashi said Hillary Clinton had told her and others on a telephone conference call earlier this summer to do what they could to get the Illinois senator elected president.

"It's a process. Barack won," said Ohigashi, an executive assistant to the Maui County Council. "And I'm all about getting a Democrat elected to the White House."

While recognizing the historic moment — Clinton's speech came on the 88th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which guaranteed women the right to vote — many Clinton delegates have found the past few days to be bittersweet.

State Senate President Colleen Hanabusa, D-21st (Nanakuli, Makaha), said it was unfair for some Democrats to expect Clinton alone to carry the burden of unifying the party.

Hanabusa, one of the whips the Clinton campaign is deploying to control Clinton delegates and avoid a distracting floor fight, said Clinton is being given an "expectation that almost can't be met."

"But it is, in a way, closure for the Clinton supporters," said Hanabusa, who was involved in Clinton's campaign in the Islands.

"We should all be united in one thing. It is history-making, even though she is not the nominee. The fact that she was able to secure as many votes as she has and come as far as she did, is, for many people, an event that we didn't think we would see in our lifetime."

'GLASS CEILING' LIVES ON

Hanabusa said Clinton's achievement has moved the nation closer to a time when gender will not matter in politics, or at least not matter as much, but it has also shown how a "glass ceiling" still exists.

Clinton has been judged — on her toughness, her empathy, her ability to lead free of her husband's influence — by standards that many of her supporters believe have not been similarly applied to male candidates.

In Hawai'i, the glass ceiling may not be as high. Since statehood, two women — the late Patsy Mink and Patricia Saiki — have represented the state in Congress. Linda Lingle became Hawai'i's first woman governor in 2002. Hanabusa became the first woman to preside over a chamber of the state Legislature last year.

But Hanabusa, a labor lawyer, said the glass ceiling still remains, and women often still earn less than their male counterparts at work.

"I think it's there," she said. "It's definitely there. And it's there in many things."

Jadine Nielsen, a Clinton delegate, had been the state director for U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, but she switched to Clinton after Edwards dropped his presidential campaign.

Nielsen said she supported Edwards because of his focus on issues such as poverty but said she has a loyalty to the Clintons. Nielsen was involved in Bill Clinton's presidential campaign in California in 1992 and was later a Clinton administration appointee.

"We're about the same age, and I identify a lot with what she has talked about and what she has gone through," Nielsen said of Hillary Clinton. "Certainly on a different scale, but I understand the issues that she was trying to espouse."

Nielsen, chairwoman of the Patsy T. Mink Political Action Committee, said Clinton's campaign may have suffered because of the news media's concentration on the historic gender and race themes between Clinton and Obama instead of policy issues.

Asked what Mink, a champion for gender equality, would have thought of the campaign, Nielsen said: "I don't want to be presumptuous in saying what Patsy Mink would have thought, but I think she would have seen what a proud moment it was to have a woman running for president and an African-American running for president."

DEFECTIONS A WORRY

The Obama campaign, in giving Clinton and former President Bill Clinton prominent prime-time speaking roles at the convention, is trying to soften the disappointment among some of the Clinton faithful and keep women from defecting to U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the likely Republican nominee.

Michelle Obama, Obama's wife, took time in her speech on Monday night to recognize Clinton's sacrifice.

Clinton, she said, "put those 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling, so that our daughters and sons can dream a little bigger and aim a little higher."

U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, Obama's vice presidential choice, told his home state delegates yesterday at breakfast of Michelle Obama's importance to the ticket.

Long after the convention is over, Biden said, "people will say the most important event in the Democratic convention was (the speech by) Michelle Obama," he said. "It's a window into who she is, who he is. It's for real."

U.S. Rep. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawai'i, a superdelegate who backed Obama, said Clinton shared a unifying message last night.

"She made it really clear that we're not here because of Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama," she said. "We're here because we want America to make a change.

"I very much relate to Hillary and her battles in running for president. I know how hard it is to break through that glass ceiling of politics, so I could really empathize with her."